The Great Gatsby :

1. The Great Gatsby: The American Dream in the Jazz Age By Laura Preble West Hills High School 2006

2. 1920s America • an era of prosperity • people wanted to have fun • the message was that to be happy, you must be rich • Immigrants were able to transform their lives

4. Social groups • Daisy and Tom belong to the ‘upper’ class, which is represented by the East (East Egg) • Nick is a Midwestern, which means that he is honest, hard-working, and represents the traditional values of integrity • Gatsby WAS from the Midwest, but has transformed himself into a wealthy East coast man. However, he lives in WEST Egg, which implies that he’s not truly of the upper class.

7. Immigration in the ‘20s • "That was always my experience—a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a rich man's club at Princeton.... However, I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works.” • —F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters, ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Scribners, 1994. pg. 352. (Cited in "Quotations," from the EDSITEment-reviewed F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary.)

8. Anti-immigrant sentiment in the ‘20s • The first Immigration Quota Law is passed by Congress in 1921 after booming post-war immigration results in 590,971 people passing through Ellis Island. Only 3% of an ethnic group living in the U.S. in 1910 will be allowed to enter the country in a year. • With the Immigration Act of 1924 restricting further immigration, the annual quota of immigrants reduces to 164,000. The buildings on Ellis Island begin to fall into neglect and abandonment. America is experiencing the end of mass immigration. • The National Origins Act is passed (1929) banning immigrants from East Asia. It also decreases the quota of European immigration to 2% of the figures recorded in the 1890 census.

9. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Midwesterner • F. Scott Fitzgerald was, in many ways, like Gatsby. He came from the Midwest, and he wanted to be part of the rich, intellectual East Coast culture. He felt that writing would allow him to escape what he hated, the boring, humdrum life of the common working man.

11. James Gatz vs. Jay Gatsby • Jay Gatsby was born James Gatz, and came from an immigrant family. He knew that to truly achieve the American Dream, he needed to be truly American, and that meant erasing his immigrant roots and all traces of his true heritage.

13. The end justifies the means? • There are rumors about how Gatsby got his money…by bootlegging, illegal gambling, or working with criminals. Does the end justify the means? Do you think it was okay for Gatsby to do what he felt he had to do to get the woman he loves? Or…is it unethical? Is it wrong for him to live a lie, even if it gets him the American Dream?

14. “America is a country of lost innocence.” • Ultimately, Fitzgerald felt that chasing after the American Dream robbed people of their innocence, or their ability to see the good in what they had. Always wanting more and better things, he came to realize, only made most people miserable. Gatsby dies trying to get what will make him happy.